Installing Windows 8 on L521x

Hi all, I have a 512gb SSD L521x with A04 bios, windows 7.

1. How do I install windows 8 with optimum performance in mind?
2. Do I really need to do clean install (i.e. wiped clean hard drive)?

 

and btw, buying the windows 8 upgrade copy, is there an option to get the DVDs? and how big is the file size if I download it?

 

1. Clean install, upgrade bios to A11 and switch to UEFI boot, install Win8 from there

2. Ask microsoft, but if you're switching from BIOS to UEFI boot you have no choice because the drive partition table information needs to change from MBR to GPT. You may be able to use Linux to convert the drive over to GPT though but I can't help you on that - try Google search. ;^)

3. You'll need to get it onto DVD or USB storage to do the install clean, I don't have details, but doing some searching will turn up some discussion of how people have dealt with that.

warning notes:

- bios a11 will dramatically change the thermal management of your system, favoring cpu-process over gpu-processing, so if games are major to you this may be bad.

- wifi performance may be helped or hurt, you take your chances, there is no guarantee either way really

good luck.

 

I just got Windows 8 Pro upgrade copy. I downloaded it via Windows 8 upgrade assistant, I had a few options, I chose to save as ISO which is 2.63 GB in size. For extra €14 I think, you can get a DVD posted to your door, if you want. The size seems to be 32bit, 64bit is bigger as far as I know.
I will try to install later on, not rush at all.

 

thanks both of you that's very helpful.

 

coderbear, i tried to UEFI boot and install windows 8. I deleted the main partition whereas left the other partitions (with system recovery and OEM drives) intact. Windows 8 will not allow me to create new partition on that 400+gb of empty space stating there's an error.

So, I changed back to legacy boot and windows 8 dvd was able to create partition from there. What's wrong >.<

 

You can't mix GPT and MBR partitions on one drive, it's all or nothing, and Windows only knows how to convert a drive if there are zero partitions on it.

So, booting UEFI trying to create a GPT partition on a drive with existing MBR partition scheme will fail.

The only way to clean that up is to destroy all the existing partitions and convert the drive to GPT, then go for the UEFI based install.

My advice would be to use a bootable USB/DVD and software to back-up the drive as a complete image (yes, including the unused space, but done this way to make sure you get the root blocks of the drive that have it configured as MBR) to a USB drive, then delete them completely and go forth with the UEFI Win8 install.

If you need to revert/restore you'll need to restore from the image.

If you don't care about restoring to the previous operating system then forego the backup and blaze new trails into Win 8...but you'll need Win7 install media to revert the machine if you do so.

FWIW: I cheated when I did mine because I replaced the 32Gb mSATA caching-only SSD with a 120Gb mSATA SSD that became my Win8 system drive. I was able to keep the spinning disc intact until I was sure I was happy with the new OS.

 

Thanks again Coderbear.

Well, I created a disc image and a disc repair using the windows recovery tool. That should be sufficient right? (disc repair for booting, then disc image to load everything back to previously...or at least, that's what I read and understood )

I am having doubts about windows 8 after using it 15 mins. Quite troublesome and annoying without touchscreen. I wonder how do I bring back the startmenu. I am sure I read about it somewhere. Will have to find that out.

One last thing, how do I use the activation key I have which is only really valid for an upgrade, not a clean install? Do I install windows 8 from scratch, go offline the whole time, and do a telephone activation? Will that work?

 

Relax about the win8 ui - it's not as obfuscating / tablet-only as you have the impression and many are posting about.

control-esc brings back the start screen - if you REALLY want the win7 start menu you can get various utilities to do that (such as Start8 from Stardock) but frankly I think it's a waste of time. It's actually less keystrokes to do most anything I was doing before.

e.g.: to run arbitrary thing instead of "<click> start menu -> run -> type-text -> enter" you can "type-test -> enter" on the start screen; hitting control-esc brings you back to the start screen (as does mouse-hover on the lower-left corner->click.

window-key + X brings up a handy short-cut menu to common things

searching for an app like you would have with the start menu before is now very different, true, but it's neither worse nor better IMO than the old way ( current way is to bring up the start screen and search 'apps' or to click into the all-apps listing ).

it amazes me how "early adopters" can be reticent / retro-grouchy about learning new things ... if they didn't want to poke around the newness and learn it all then why bother installing win8?

wacky.

fwiw, I've been abused by Windows since, er, "1.0" and while I was VERY accustomed to my keyboard-based state on win7 and prior it took me like three days to become almost as mouse-less on win8. Also, the dell gesture/swiping integration on the l521x track-pad seems to work very well for me ... be sure to explore what the win8 trackpad driver supports gesture wise and get them into your usage patterns. For example I actually never right-click the thing any more (as in actually use the right-click "click") as I'm using the two-finger tap to bring up the context menu. The trackpad also supports the tablet-ee multi-point swiping and gestures pretty well I think.

As far as repairing - you can certainly do a repair from the boot media, that should reset the drivers. If that leaves the intel drivers "in play" you could try manually deleting them from a repair-boot command-line version.

For being able to restore the win7 image - I think you've the right stuff. I haven't used the Windows provided system image for a restore yet, but I haven't needed to and was too lazy to do it just to test it.

 

Hi Coderbear,

Thanks for the tips. I will re-install windows 8 after wiping clean the harddrive (fingers crossed) and then try and play around with windows 8.

Any comments about upgrade vs clean install (for activating windows)? did you face this situation (of not being to activate online because the key given is not for clean install) or did you do an upgrade instead?

 

You won't have a problem with the key, they work for full installs as well as upgrades. The only ones that are locked down are the OEM ones which can only be associated with one system (ever).

 

i bought my win8 key from MS via the cheap deal they have going for recent pc purchases, I used it for a clean install.

the 32gb msata SSD that the machine comes with is not big enough for windows install IMO ... just not big enough ... which is why i bought a larger one.

i choose to believe that a clean install is better, FYI.

 

strange, because i really have a problem with the key. It works for installing but after installing, it says that I need to activate it and when I tried telephone activation (because online activation fails), it says that it's only for upgrade use only, whereas I did a clean install.

I am going to try to reinstall the whole thing again. Wish me luck ^^

 

Thanks Coderbear. Finally got it working. I had to manually regedit windows for the activation to work, but at least it's working now.

Initially restarting the PC (from total shut down) took me less than 15s. But after a few windows updates, it's becoming 23 seconds (even with PCI card reader disabled, it's the same). Calculated from press of power button.

I figure it's probably because I haven't installed any dell drivers yet, my vido card isn't working, my touch pad isn't multigesture. I will install those drivers later tmr maybe and see how it goes. Hopefully the start-up time can be less than 10s. Since I am using SSD for my laptop....

 

So I played around with the bios...

By switching bios to disable legacy PROM or something like that, I shaved a few secs from start time.

By changing bios 'boot option' to 'last' instead of 'auto', I shaved a further few secs.

So now start time from pressing power button is less than 11s.

Edit: When I disabled PCI card reader, start time is now 8s. I might just keep it disabled since I don't really use the card reader.

I noticed that shut down time is quite slow. I think almost 8s. Wonder if anyone is getting faster times?



Coderbear, how do you shut down the windows 8 PC? I always pressed "windows + I " --> power --> shut down. Is there a faster way?

 

I have mine set to hibernate when I press the power button and sleep when I close the lid.

You could set one to power down if desired. I think that would be fastest.

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